The reference operator at vela-hub.fly.dev is one implementation of the protocol running in production. It holds no privilege the protocol does not grant every operator: it keeps an append-only transparency log of every event, publishes its witness digest, and runs the Rust reference reducer. Anyone can run a second operator that diverges from it and let the witness set resolve the disagreement.
§1 What the hub runs
The hub runs vela-rs at protocol v0.48.0, reads its events
from the canonical log mirror, and exposes a JSON API for browsing
findings, evidence, transitions, and lineage. The reading surface
lives at app.constellate.science;
the API base is hub.constellate.science.
§2 Why one and not many
Currently the hub is the only operator. This is a property of the protocol's adoption curve, not its design. Vela is built so that a second operator can be stood up by any institution willing to run a reducer and a transparency log; the witness set will absorb the new participant and reduce single-operator risk. The First Corridor pilot plan names which institutions are being pursued as candidate witnesses; see /pilot-plan for detail.
§3 Where the numbers come from
The state ticker above shows the current corpus of the Early
Alzheimer's treatment-response frontier (vfr_06cfcbe7c449d86a)
as of May 26, 2026. Every number is computable from the public
event log; the hub re-derives them on each request. You can
verify them yourself with any Vela reducer pointed at the same
log endpoint.